Donald Trump

The confusion, mixed messages, and lack of candor surrounding President Donald Trump's health would surprise few Africans. However, they might well be surprised by the details that have been released, such as the president's oxygen capacity or medications prescribed. African governments rarely admit that a chief of state is ill, and they provide few updates. When they do, they are often met with skepticism. An African chief of state "enjoys excellent health" – until he dies. In the United States, administrations always try to manage the news about a president's health. For example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to minimize public awareness of his wheel-chair dependence or President John F. Kennedy public knowledge that he suffered from Addison's Disease. However, at least since President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack, the American public has come to believe that it is entitled to the details about a president's health – and an aggressive media has responded to that demand. The free American media limits White House ability to successfully manage the news about a president's health. While generalization about African publics is always fraught, unlike in the United States, in most of sub-Saharan Africa there is little sense that the public is entitled to know the details of a chief of state's health. In weak states, knowledge is power, and not to be gratuitously shared. Outside the westernized elites, there is fear that knowledge about an individual's health can provide the basis for mischief making. In African traditional societies, it would not occur to demand the medical details of a chief at any level.

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential contenders are saying about foreign policy. This week: The news that President Trump tested positive for the coronavirus injects new uncertainty into Election 2020.

Mainstream U.S. media is characterizing the September 29 debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden as a disaster. The moderator was never able to establish control. President Trump, especially, constantly interrupted former Vice President Biden. Rather than a discussion about policy and ideas, the debate was a rant or a temper tantrum. In Africa, the debate will hardly burnish the image of democracy or the United States. However, the October 2 news that President Trump and the First Lady have tested positive for the coronavirus is likely to overshadow the debate in Africa as elsewhere.  This debate was focused on U.S. domestic issues. Therefore, there is no surprise that there was – literally – no reference to Africa. A subsequent debate would address U.S. foreign policy, and it is devoutly to be hoped that the candidates would at least acknowledge the continent's growing importance. However, with the President's diagnosis, it is by no means certain that there will be any more presidential debates. The debate between Vice President Pence and challenger Kamala Harris is almost certain to go ahead next week, but its focus is likely to be purely domestic.   Though it varies from country to country, probably most Africans have access to the internet. (In any given month at least 80 percent of Nigerians, who number some 205 million, access the internet.) Africans, like others around the world, follow U.S. presidential elections closely. It must be anticipated that many, perhaps most, of Africa's leadership watched the presidential debate, along with a large number of other Africans. Over the next day or two, the news of the President's diagnosis will be universally known in Africa.  Many Africans acknowledge that in their country democracy is weak, government is unresponsive, and too often has been captured by self-serving elites. (With more than fifty states in Africa, there are, of course, exceptions to poor governance: Botswana, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa immediately come to mind; there are others.) For much of the period since 1960 when most African states became independent, the United States has been a beacon of hope for democrats. But, the American image has been eroding, not least because of American police violence, the response to "Black Lives Matter" demonstrations, white supremacist rhetoric, and in some places new American immigration policies. The poor U.S. response to COVID-19 in comparison with other countries has also undermined the American brand. For Africans, the President's diagnosis is likely to highlight the shortcomings of the American response to the virus.

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential contenders are saying about foreign policy. This week: how Donald Trump and Joe Biden say the United States should deal with Iran.

President Trump's virtual address to the UN General Assembly was shallow, unpersuasive, and exaggerated his domestic and international achievements.

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential contenders are saying about foreign policy. This week: For all of its surprises, 2020 is shaping up as a traditional campaign year in one important respect.

The pandemic has worsened all the factors driving migrants north, not least from Mexico.

President Donald J. Trump’s order to withdraw nearly ten thousand U.S. troops from Germany betrays a close ally, undermines confidence in Washington, and makes Europe and the United States less safe.

On June 2, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald J. Trump spoke by phone. According to the Indian government’s call readout, the president “conveyed his desire to expand the ambit of the [G7] grouping beyond the existing membership, to include other important countries including India. In this context, he extended an invitation to Prime Minister Modi to attend the next G-7 Summit to be held in USA.” This confirmation from the Indian government builds upon the president’s remarks, reported on May 30, about his plans to convene a larger G7 summit including Australia, India, South Korea—and Russia; in his words, to “discuss China’s future.” Predictably, Trump’s invitation to India has generated substantial interest within India, as has the invitation to Australia similarly received coverage there. In the United States, more attention appears to be directed toward the president’s plans to include Russia in this enlarged grouping. There’s little economic logic to a grouping that would include Russia, no longer among the world’s top ten economies at market exchange rates, while excluding China, the world’s second largest economy (largest if using purchasing power parity terms). But the G7 has never professed to be a gathering of “developed and developing economies from every continent” along the lines of the G20. The G7 was created as a consultation of industrialized economies, all of which have been democracies since the grouping’s origins in 1975. The original G6 included the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy, with Canada joining to make the G7 by 1976. Russia participated in the G8 from 1998 to 2014 until its invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea caused the group to eject it. In the decades since the G7 formed, emerging markets have grown to become far more important to the global economy—and large emerging markets like China and India have become crucial to every issue of collective action that the G7 is preoccupied with, such as climate change, clean energy, and health pandemics. Both countries participate in the G20 but have not been part of the G7. Should the criteria of “advanced industrialized” still apply as a threshold for G7 inclusion when countries still in the middle-income or lower-middle-income categories have become so central? My answer to that is no, and I argued in my book that it’s time to consider Indian membership in an expanded G7 given the size of its economy and the fact that, for all its troubles, India is a democracy. Democracy sets India apart from China, so it could be a conceivable and logical expansion to include India in an enlarged G7, but not China. But using this yardstick, the selection of Australia and South Korea spurs questions about other democratic economies around the same size not on the list. What about Brazil and Mexico? Or Indonesia? A ranking of the ten largest economies that are also democracies—using market exchange rates—would suggest inclusion of Brazil, India, and South Korea in a “D10” grouping along with all members of the existing G7. That same ranking using purchasing power parity would include India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and South Korea—but not Italy and Canada, core G7 members. All of this is food for thought on the purpose and design of any expansion of this consultation. Countries in bold are current G7 members. Sources: Market exchange rate data (2018, latest available) comes from the World Bank. Purchasing power parity data (2020, estimated) comes from the IMF. Most of all, it’s clear that the twentieth-century institutions of global governance have not reformed to reflect the established importance of emerging economies to the world. In his own way, Trump was right to call the G7 an “outdated group of countries,” because it is. What we need, however, is a logical and consistent way to create a more relevant group for the challenges currently facing us. The invitees to the Trump G7 summit do not, as a group—and especially with the inclusion of Russia—provide that clear, coherent case for an enlarged institution.

The United States is pursuing bilateral agreements to shape international space law.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump's disdain for multilateral cooperation has cost the United States its credibility as a responsible stakeholder in the international system.

President Trump’s penchant for going it alone makes little sense in a world increasingly defined by global challenges that can best be met through collective action.

Immigration benefits the United States while hewing to the nation's founding principles. 

The White House-orchestrated campaign to discredit the World Health Organization amid the coronavirus pandemic has been unfair and disingenuous.